Instincts
by InvisiblePrincess2002
Summary: It's been one week since Tootie's photo session with the famous fashion photographer Jonathan Dutton, and Mrs. Garrett can tell that Tootie isn't her usual self, so she convinces her to open up about her disturbing experience. One-shot. Fits into cannon.


**Author's Note:** This story is based on the NBC television series _The Facts of Life_ , which as far as I know, is the property of Embassy Television, Columbia Pictures Television, and Sony Pictures Television. **No infringement is intended.**

It was a quiet Saturday evening for twelve-year-old Tootie Ramsey. Her three older roommates, Blair Warner, Jo Polniaczek, and Natalie Green, had all gone out into town to a new pizza place that had recently opened up, but even though they invited Tootie to come along, she refused. Ordinarily she would never have said no to pizza, but now, she simply didn't feel like going out. She had far too much on her mind.

And her unusually subdued demeanor had not gone unnoticed by Mrs. Garrett, the dietician at the Eastland School for Girls, who was now responsible to the school for Tootie and her roommates after they stole and wrecked the school van and got in trouble with the cops at the beginning of the school year. Ever since that unfortunate incident, which resulted in the girls having to move out of the dorms and into the room across the hall from Mrs. Garrett over the kitchen, the five of them had really become a family. Tootie and the girls now had to help Mrs. Garrett out in the school kitchen and cafeteria until the damage they did to the van was paid off, and while they hadn't exactly been thrilled about that, nor about moving across the hall from Mrs. Garrett, it had in fact been a very good thing for them, and Mrs. Garrett loved and cared for them as if they were her own. In many ways, she was more of a parent to them than their own parents were, and like any true mother, she knew when something wasn't right with one of her girls.

It had been a week since they'd gone to Manhattan to meet with the famous fashion photographer Jonathan Dutton for a photo shoot, and the events that transpired that day had left Tootie a little shaken to say the least, and she still wasn't back to her normal self. Tootie was usually very lively, talkative, and outgoing, not to mention the fact that she was the reigning queen of school gossip who had more than earned her reputation as the Rona Barrett of Eastland. However, since that disturbing photo shoot had happened, Tootie had started becoming a little withdrawn, and she'd been surprisingly quiet the past several days.

Jonathan Dutton had recently come to Eastland looking for a fresh young face for his new ad campaign for a kind of perfume, and he'd chosen Tootie. Her parents had asked Mrs. Garrett to go with her as her chaperone, and Tootie asked Blair to be her dresser, or "fashion coordinator," as she liked to call it. And while Tootie, Mrs. Garrett, and Blair had planned to be in Dutton's studio for the afternoon, Jo and Natalie had also made plans to visit the Guggenheim Museum, so it was an occasion their entire family really looked forward to. Tootie, her parents, and Mrs. Garrett had gone into it innocently believing that her being the new young face of Jonathan Dutton's ads would simply involve wearing pretty new clothes and accessories for photographs. Unfortunately, as the photo shoot progressed, they were in for an unpleasant surprise.

In the middle of the photo shoot, Dutton really embarrassed Tootie and made her feel uncomfortable, telling her to "give him real sensuality," to "make love to the camera," to "smolder," and that she was "a sensual animal stalking the camera lens." At the end of the session, he informed them that in her next photo shoot, he planned to have her wearing nothing but a wig. Despite the fact that Tootie was so very young, Dutton was trying to make her look and act like an adult woman, and infinitely worse than that, he was trying to turn the twelve-year-old into a sex object. Thankfully, Mrs. Garrett put her foot down and put a stop to it, and although Dutton did try to get Tootie to say otherwise, Tootie was smart enough to agree with Mrs. Garrett. She let him know that he'd embarrassed her, and that the last thing she wanted was to go on some diet to look like a stick and give up Eastland and her friends, as he'd tried to press her into doing. She made the very adult decision to remain a kid that day, and she and Mrs. Garrett and the girls all celebrated that by going out for hot dogs at Tootie's request.

But while the other girls were instantly able to go back to their normal, everyday lives, that photo shoot with Dutton left its mark on Tootie. Everything really happened too fast for her mind to process it at the time, but now that she'd had time to reflect on it, she felt deeply disturbed to say the least.

It was now seven-thirty and one of Tootie's favorite TV programs had just ended, and now that the other girls were out of the house, Mrs. Garrett decided to take this opportunity to have a word with Tootie in private. She was sitting on the loveseat in the lounge, and just as Mrs. Garrett came in, she turned off their portable television set that was sitting on the coffee table.

Mrs. Garrett then sat down beside her, put a loving hand on her shoulder, and asked, "How are you doing tonight, Tootie?"

"I'm okay, I guess," Tootie said quietly.

"Come on, Tootie. I know that something's bothering you. Out with it. What's going on?"

Tootie let out a sigh, and then she answered, "I don't know, Mrs. Garrett. It's kind of hard to explain. Ever since that photo shoot with Jonathan Dutton last weekend, I've just felt…messed up inside. The whole thing was just so weird…and kind of scary, too. I just don't know how to put it into words."

Mrs. Garrett knowingly nodded, and she told Tootie, "I know it's difficult, sweetheart, but I think you need to try to talk about what happened; about how Dutton made you feel that day."

Tootie adamantly shook her head and said, "I don't want to talk about it, Mrs. Garrett. I don't even want to think about it. The whole thing just makes me feel strange…and sick."

"What he did to you during that photo session _was_ strange and sick. I realize that this is hard to talk about, but you _need_ to talk about it even though you don't want to. You need to go on and get it out in the open so you can begin to deal with it. When we were in Dutton's studio last week, you told him that the way he talked to you embarrassed you."

"It did."

"Did he do anything else during that photo shoot that made you feel embarrassed or uncomfortable in any way? Anything at all, no matter how small it might seem?"

"Well…there were a couple of seconds when…"

Mrs. Garrett then took Tootie's hand and gently asked, "When what? What happened during that couple of seconds?"

After letting out another sigh, Tootie hesitantly replied, "After he turned on the music and started snapping pictures of me, there was maybe a second or two when he didn't have the camera over his face and he looked at me with this weird, scary look in his eyes. For just that one instant, the way he was looking at me…made me feel like I didn't have any clothes on. That look in his eyes even made me feel like…he wanted to have sex with me. I know I probably sound crazy."

Mrs. Garrett squeezed Tootie's hand and said, "You're not crazy at all. Tootie, I want you to understand something. What Dutton did to you was wrong. It was a violation."

"It's not like he raped me or anything."

"He may not have assaulted you physically, but it _was_ a violation nonetheless. It was a violation, a heinous violation, of your personal boundaries. Just because he didn't force you to have sex with him physically doesn't make it any less wrong that he used you for sex in his own mind. What he did to you that day was absolutely wrong. It was twisted and sick and _wrong._ And if, God forbid, anybody ever makes you feel the way Dutton did last Saturday, I want you to come and find me and I'll deal with him. Understood?"

"Understood."

Mrs. Garrett nodded, and a moment later, she pulled Tootie into her embrace and kissed the top of her head. She then told her, "I'm so sorry this happened, honey. The minute you came out of that dressing room in that outfit and all that makeup, _I knew_ Dutton was up to no good. My instincts told me to grab you and yank you out of that photo shoot right then and there. I wish I would have, but I didn't because I knew how much you'd been looking forward to it."

"During those weird moments with Mr. Dutton, my instincts told me to bolt out of there, but I didn't want to mess up the photo shoot and I didn't want to make a scene, so I just kept trying to do what he wanted, even though it didn't feel right."

Mrs. Garrett then put her index finger under Tootie's chin, tilted her face upward so they were making eye contact, and said, "Tootie, any time, _any time_ , that you feel threatened like that, I want you to listen to your instincts and do what they tell you to do. _Do not_ worry about making a scene. If you feel someone's putting you in danger in _any_ way and I'm not there with you to help you, I want you to do whatever you have to do to get away from that person. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you, Mrs. Garrett."

Mrs. Garrett nodded, and for the next minute or so, she simply held Tootie in her protective embrace while berating herself inside for allowing this to happen.

Tootie then broke the silence and said, "I guess both of us should've listened to our instincts last Saturday, huh?"

"Yes, we certainly should have," Mrs. Garrett agreed. "God gave us our instincts to protect us; to warn us of danger. May this be a lesson to both of us to always listen to them from now on."

"Lesson learned. I'm just glad you were there and that nothing worse happened."

"So am I. What that creep did to you last weekend was bad enough."

"No kidding. It's really kind of scary, knowing that there actually are people like him in the world who do things like that to kids."

"Yes, it is scary. Very scary. But we can't give in to our fears and let them paralyze us. We can't be afraid of every place we go to or every person we meet. If we do that, all the evil in this world will have won."

"Is there anything we can do to stop him?"

After a very frustrated sigh, Mrs. Garrett replied, "If only. I made a bunch of calls earlier this week. It seems that Dutton can do practically anything he wants with a model under eighteen as long as he gets her parents' permission and they sign the forms."

"What kind of parents would do that? What kind of parents would sign their child over to a life of child pornography?"

"I don't know, Tootie. I don't know how anybody could do that to their own child. There are a lot people in this world who are selfish, greedy, even evil."

"I'm glad I live here at Eastland, where it's safe and nobody is that evil. Do you think there's any chance that some predator like Jonathan Dutton will come to Eastland someday…and do something to violate another girl like Dutton violated me?"

Mrs. Garrett shook her head and told her honestly, "I can't answer that, Tootie. I truly wish with all my heart that I could look you in the eye and promise you that nothing like that could ever happen on the Eastland campus, but I can't. What I can promise you is that I will always do everything I can to keep you girls safe, and that I will always be here for you, no matter what happens."

Tootie slowly nodded, and then she looked up at Mrs. Garrett and told her, "I know that when the girls and I got into trouble eight months ago, we really messed things up for you. I know you never have any privacy anymore, thanks to us. But still, I'm really glad you're here and that we're all living together now."

Mrs. Garrett smiled and said, "So am I, honey. So am I."

As Mrs. Garrett began rocking her, Tootie did start feeling a little better inside. Obviously, she wasn't over her experience yet. That would take a little time. However, talking about it and sorting it out with Mrs. Garrett helped quite a bit, and even though she hadn't wanted to open up at first, now, she was glad she did. Tootie didn't know what to expect from the future in such a scary world as this, but she did know one thing for certain: she was grateful to be with her family at Eastland.


End file.
